How auto-tagging works

Auto-tagging automatically imports AdWords data into Analytics. Combining AdWords data with the rich post-click information provided by Analytics allows you to see what happened on your site after people clicked on your ads.

When you enable auto-tagging, a parameter called gclid is added to your landing page URL when a user clicks over to your site from an ad. For example, if your site is www.mysite.com, when a user clicks on your ad it appears in the address bar as:

www.mysite.com/?gclid=123xyz

Enable auto-tagging

To enable/disable auto-tagging:

Sign in to your AdWords account.

Click the gear icon, and select Account settings.

Make sure you're on the Preferences tab, and click Edit in the Tracking section.

Special cases

Your website doesn't allow arbitrary URL parameters

A small percentage of websites do not allow arbitrary URL parameters and serve an error page when auto-tagging is turned on. Consult with your webmaster to find out if this is the case, or turn on auto-tagging and do a test by clicking a live version of your ad (for example, do a Google search that displays your ad and click that). If the link to your site works, then you can use auto-tagging. If you get an error, you need to turn auto-tagging off from your AdWords account. Then, ask your webmaster to allow arbitrary URL parameters before turning it back on.

If allowing URL parameters is not a workable solution, you can tag your links manually. However, manual tagging can be time consuming and will only allow you to see a subset of AdWords data.

Use caution when manually tagging your links:

Tag your actual final URLs with parameters. If you try to use a redirect from a final URL to another URL + parameters, your AdWords data won't be transmitted to Analytics.

You need to use auto-tagging for non-Analytics purposes

If you need to (1) turn on auto-tagging in your AdWords account for purposes other than Analytics tracking and (2) wish to use manual tagging for Analytics, then you must enable the auto-tagging override setting to avoid data discrepancies:

This setting enables Analytics reports to use UTM values for Campaign, Term, and Content that you've specified via manual tagging. If you haven't specified UTM values for one or more of these parameters, Analytics uses the auto-tagged values for those parameters instead.

Example

You specify utm_campaign = "foo".

Analytics reports use:

Campaign = "foo"

Auto-tagged values for all other parameters:

source = "google"

medium = "cpc"

term = [auto-tagged value from AdWords]

content = [auto-tagged value from AdWords]

Analytics also continues to join these clicks with AdWords. As a result, you can:

Access richer data in some Analytics reports, such as Final URL, Shopping Campaigns, and Video Campaigns.

Note: For clicks to appear in the Analytics AdWords reports, they must have a Source/Medium of google/cpc. This means that if you manually tag either source or medium, Analytics will use the manually provided values, but you will not see these clicks in the AdWords reports in Analytics.